


A Girl Meets a Boy

by Hotpie



Series: Hotpie Canon Universe [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dubious Consent, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Faceless Arya, First Time, Future Fic, Post-Canon, Revenge, Season/Series 06 Spoilers, Short, Smut, Teenage Angst for Assassins, fluff if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-07-26 17:44:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7583905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotpie/pseuds/Hotpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl takes a face; a girl takes a lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> _TV canon (with a smattering of book canon because Gendry is probably still not on a rowboat, and I'm kind of going with the theory that the Brotherhood is repaying Gendry for all the grief they put him through). Arya is of age. Warning for Faceless Man dub con-iness. ~~Two Three~~ Four-parter. Will contain character death (major to the show/books, not to this story), because Arya still has her list and really needs to cross a name off. _
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Un-beta'd, because I am a beast of little patience._

She wore a girl's face the day she arrived at the Crossroads.

It was the same face she wore to the Twins, the face that had had old Frey pawing at her backside like she was a common tavern whore. The face that charmed its way to the cook's knives when the old man's sons lay in pools of blood in the corridor. Even Arya had thought the face comely when she saw it in the House of Black and White, peaceful in its alcove. "Does the girl have a name?" Arya had whispered to herself, running her thumb across the dead girl's lower lip. She leant forward; it no longer hurt, to bend. It was like she was no longer bleeding now that the enemy was dead. "Your name," she told the face, "is Death."

 _Is that a girl's name now_? she wondered as she wended through the narrow dirt lanes of the Brotherhood's haunt, a basket of Hot Pie's fresh-baked bread on her hip.  After all, she wasn't here to kill. She was here to _see_.

And if there was one thing that was easy to see, feel, smell, was that the Inn at the Crossroads was alive. She'd never seen it so busy, and had never seen so many wagons and horses heading south. Almost every conversation gave her pause and a strange pang in her chest: morose travelers shaking cold rain off their cloaks and moaning darkly to their fellows, "Winter is here." Winter wasn't coming, not anymore; the Starks held Winterfell, and she would be heading home soon enough. But for now…for a while…she had other things to attend to.

Other things like delivering bread to the armory, and standing there with the basket, waiting for him to look up.

He was half-naked again, as he so often was. Stronger than ever, broad-shouldered and gleaming with sweat. She remembered the flutter of curiosity she had felt when seeing him like this for the first time so many years ago, that strange child's fancy, the way her attention lingered longer than she had meant it to. He had grown a beard, which she thought looked stupid, but which was also starting to grow on her--and probably would, literally, if both of them stood still long enough.

"Delivery from the kitchens," she said with a girl's voice, and Gendry looked up from the forge and swept an arm across his forehead.

"Thank you, Nan," he said as she handed over his bundle. "You're working tonight?"

"Always, m'lord," she said. She turned, and watched him over her shoulder, his smile growing wider as she left him.

That smile was definitely no longer hesitant, not anymore. It had been in the weeks before, ever since she had first seen him, had come on too strong serving drinks in the tavern into the small hours of the night.  She'd sat down next to him the first time she saw him, pressed in close to him and whispered the way she saw some of the other girls doing when they were trying to keep their customers drunk, happy, and emptying their purses. "You're a handsome one, aren't you?" Arya had said to him, emboldened with the foreign tongue, heartened by her foreign face. "I wouldn't be the first one to find my way into your bed on a cold evening, would I, my lord?"

Gendry had moved a few inches away from her, so that the cold slid back between them.  "The ale will do," he'd told her, not meeting her eyes, and he lifted his flagon and said with finality: "Thank you."

She didn't come on so strong after that. She was friendly, and learned to talk like the other girls, like a tavern girl was meant to. She borrowed her "m'lord"s and "m'lady"s and her wrong way of speaking from Tansy, and learned shier smiles and a quieter voice from Willow, who she saw laughing and smiling with Gendry from time to time in conversations that made Arya's insides burn.

The bed-knowledge she took from all of them, and the striplings from the crossroads who would find their way into their shared rooms more evenings than not, too poor for real whores, too lonely to go to bed alone.

And finally, her name she stripped from her old self: Nan. Short for Nymeria, if anyone asked, but no one would. She didn't look like a Nymeria, and didn't sound like one. Not anymore.

Gendry had stopped her one day when she slid his ale onto the table and began to walk on with her eyes downcast, as always, playing the shy maid.

"I feel like I've seen you before," he'd told her, and she could feel her usual grin returning.

 _Three guesses, you numpty_.

"Been here for a moon now, m'lord," she said.

"As much as I might like it," he replied, giving her the first wan smile she'd earned from him since she arrived, "I'm no lord."

_You used to mock me and call me "m'lady," you remember? Would you do it again if I told you to?_

"And I'm no lady," she told him, forcing her smile into retreat.

She turned to go but he caught her arm. She could break those strong fingers, but only if she wanted to. And if there was one thing she'd learned from sharing a room with Tansy and that quick rotation of stable boys, squires, and hedge knights, it was that she might want use of those fingers later.

"What's your name?" he asked, releasing her.

"Nan, m'lord," she said.

"And I'm Gendry," he told her.

"I know," she'd said, before she could stop herself. Then she dipped into a little curtsy, her heart beating hard, and fled into the kitchen, where she stayed helping Hot Pie with the pies until Gendry was gone.

"You're not the first, you know," Hot Pie told her, repositioning her hand to hold the funnel straight. He tipped the pot of jelly, and hummed as he spooned it into the tin between her fingers.  

"Not the first what?" she replied. The jelly was still boiled-hot and slow to filter through; she wished he would pour quicker--a dead girl's skin still felt pain.

"Girl sweet on him," Hot Pie replied. "You won't get anywhere, I don't think. Seems scared of your lot."

 _Melisandre_ _,_ Arya thought, the name on her list bright in her mind, like it had been branded there.

"More fool him," Hot Pie remarked. "And more girls for me."

"Right, Hot Pie," Arya replied. She let the funnel go before it could burn her.


	2. Part Two

The night after she brought him bread, he stayed until the fire died. He was drunk, and she'd had more than one pint herself, and there was nothing hesitant about their smiles now. She could feel herself slipping, Arya coming back, and it was more than once she caught her reflection in a polished plate and was shocked to find Nan's face there and not her own.

He was slumped in his chair at a table, the only one here besides her. Everyone else had slank off upstairs, either together or alone, or back to their lopsided stone cottages and the hovels that dotted the Crossroads and the land around it. It was so late that even the groans and bangs of the travelers upstairs had quieted, and they were left in smoky silence, long after Arya should have been abed.

"It's late," she told Gendry, drawing out the chair across from him. She sank into it with a sigh, her legs aching. It was during the long working nights that she missed killing most. More often than not, the kill was slow, a subtle hunt…and then it was quick, a pounce--over in seconds, energy expended. Then the blood was out and she could savor it before moving on to travel and sleep and sniff out the next name on her list. Sometimes she would catch a glimpse of gold hair across the room, or a hulking soldier in steel plate, and think that maybe a name had come to her, that she wasn't at the Crossroads to only serve herself instead of the Many-Faced God. But then the figure would turn or speak or laugh, or Gendry would come in with his apprentice or brewer, and her list would be forgotten. She would be Nan again, rushing about the floor, spilling drinks, sweeping up the remnants of a long night over the threshold and out onto the street as the lights went out in every window.

The fire gave one last hiss, a death rattle. Gendry shifted in his chair, his chin resting on the the back of his palm, and looked up at her, the expression on his face making her heart catch a bit in her ribs, like she was some stupid lovelorn girl. He looked less drunk than she had expected. Instead, he looked very sober, and very awake.

"What brought you here, anyway?" he asked as Arya slid his half-full flagon of ale across the table and took a sip. It was foul and warm but she was thirsty, so it went down easy. As easy as their conversation, which, even with her new way of talking, burst from her like she'd been holding back the words for years.

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and set his ale down. "What brings anyone here?" she asked.

"The Brotherhood, some of 'em," Gendry replied, taking his own sip, his lips closing over the very part of the rim where Arya's ( _Nan's_ ) had been, a kiss separated by moments. "Travelers. Not everyone tends to just show up and stay, though."

"I didn't say nothing about staying," Arya replied.

"A moon," he said thoughtfully, "and you're still here. Where from?"

"All over," she replied.

"And before that?"

The next two words were harder: "The north."

"Everyone look like you up there?"

She gave him a little half-smile, her heart hammering. She wasn't sure whether to feel hurt or flattered. Would he think Arya pretty, or only Nan?

"No, m'lord," she said.

"Shame," he replied.

She flushed and took another long pull from his drink, until the rest of it was gone.

He frowned into the empty flagon. She smirked at him. "I'm not carrying you home," she told him.

"S'only across the way," he replied. Arya's nails dug hard into her thighs. "I'm not very heavy," he said. "Promise."

"Don't be an idiot," she said.

He grinned. "Will you?" he asked her.

Arya couldn't find the muscles to smile. It felt like her face was detaching, sliding away. "You mean to have a girl in your bed tonight," she murmured.

"Not a girl," Gendry replied. His blue eyes set on her, and didn't move. "I mean to have you."


	3. Part Three

The chaos of the Crossroads had calmed in the dead of night, and Gendry and Arya walked close together back to the armory, dodging horse shit, pushing through the front door, tiptoeing through the front room so they didn't wake his apprentice.

His room was hot, warmed by the forge. And narrow, with a narrow table and a thin, high lamp, and a narrow bed pressed up against a hot wall. Gendry shrugged off his coat while Arya stood against the bolted door, watching him.

She was more nervous than she meant to be. Several times before this, she'd thought of sliding aside Nan's face and coming to him with her own, to see what he might say, do. Some small part of her panicked, thinking he might not remember her--that perhaps she had slid away from his memory, too. But then there were other times she thought she caught hints of herself in their conversation, when Gendry mentioned a "pain-in-the-arse" friend, or shared a significant look with Hot Pie, or, oddly, sometimes when he didn't say anything at all.

"You all right?" Arya asked, thinking it strange that she was the one asking, considering she was the one who was a maid. Not that she put any store in such things--that was always Sansa's concern, not Arya's. When she did think of it before (when her mind wasn't full of other things--revenge, sliding the knife into the Waif's throat), she imagined some mad, lustful coupling on horseback as she stormed away from battle. Or she imagined that she would be here, in this room, with Gendry undressing in front of her--only while she wore her own face, not Nan's.

"It's just--I've never done this before," Gendry told her solemnly. "Not to completion, at least."

Arya gaped at him. "Is Lord Gendry a maid?"

"Don't laugh at me." His face was stern, hurt, and Arya thought again: _Melisandre. What did she do to you?_

"Do I look like I’m laughing?" she said. She tried to lighten her voice so it didn't come from low in her belly, where deep down, she was quivering. "We don't have to if you don't want to," she said softly.

"Never said I didn't want to," Gendry replied.

He untied the neck of his tunic and pulled it over his head. Underneath, he was muscle, skin and hair, just like the many times she'd seen him before, but dry, without the sheen of sweat. The air was hot around them, and Arya could feel damp in her underarms ( _and my nethers)_ , and if all went well, it wouldn't be long before they were both slick and shining.

"Your turn," Gendry urged her on, a small smile returning to his face, "m'lady."

Something went funny inside her. She pulled her dress over her head, inelegant as always, glad for the opportunity it afforded to hide the look on her ( _Nan's_ ) face. Did he know? Was he teasing? Had he known this entire time?

"Don't call me that," she snapped, and threw her dress to the floor.

His smile faltered, then slid away as she pulled down the shoulders of her smock, slid it down to her elbows, and let it fall to the floor beside her dress.

"Is it bad?" she asked.

"What?" he replied. "No. It's only--"

"What happened?" Arya asked. "The last time."

His face hardened. "Don't want to talk about it," he said.

"I can kill her for you if you like," Arya offered, another slip, a stupid one, as she knew that would make him angry--but his expression softened.

"I'm sure you could if you wanted to," he replied.

Then he was fumbling at his own laces, and pushing his breeches down to his ankles, and kicking them off beneath the low bed.

Arya stared at him, learning the lower half of his body--the upper half she already knew well enough. He had strong legs, lots of muscle about the thighs. And his cock--

"Is it bad?"

She looked up. He was smiling at her.

"You're a maid, too," he asked, though it wasn't really a question.

 _Nan, not Arya_. "I can be if you want me to," she said. She drew her lower lip into her mouth, licked it, let it go.

"I'd like that," he replied.

His approach was hesitant, a faltering step followed by another faltering step. When his calloused hands landed on her shoulders, she jolted from the contact and he made a shy sound, a sort of sigh, a breathy growl. Looked down at Nan's breasts--Arya's weren't quite as large, nor was her waist as pinched-in--and slipped a thumb across the peak of one, proving that borrowed ones worked just as well as her own.

"You don't like that," Gendry said, meeting her eyes.

"I don't know," Arya said. "Try again."

He did, resting each breast in his calloused palms. Held them together so they formed a seam in the middle. Arya had never been able to do that with her own.

"Stop playing," she told him.

He looked up, grinning. "Sorry," he said. "You're so beautiful," he said.

Then she took a hold of each side of his face and kissed him.

His lips were softer than the rest of him. They parted after only a second, Gendry straightening to tower over her once more, but Arya stood up on tiptoes and pulled him back down to her again. A kiss, a kiss, a longer kiss. Another kiss that sent his arms wrapping around her narrowed waist, meeting at her spine. A kiss that had his lips parting, and his ale-soaked tongue sliding against hers, and twisting in her mouth, and whispering things to her without words that made her tongue answer back.

A kiss that cut off her breathing, and made her lungs contract and her head swim, and the most peculiar ache cramp up in her insides, between her legs. She rocked closer to him and let out a groan she didn't know she'd been keeping inside when she felt him hard against her lower belly, and hotter than the heat from the forge.

One hand had a hold of her thigh, was pulling it up around him, onto the jut of his hipbone. He took the other, so she clung onto him, feeling like she was miles up in the air, miles from the ground.

He stepped back toward the bed. They fell backwards, laughing, and bounced, and Arya straddled him, a slim thigh each side of his hips, feeling him hard there at the ache between her legs, demanding entry.

"No," Gendry said, suddenly, frightened, and Arya gave a little gasp of surprise as he flung her off of him and she rolled beside him on the hard little bed. Scent puffed up into the air from the thin blankets, the stink of sweat and iron and Gendry.

"What--" she began.

"I want to be on top," Gendry said, turning her beneath him so her hips pointed skyward, her thighs at perfect slanting angles and so unmovable they could buttress walls. Then he was on top of her, his chest pressed against the pointed ache of her borrowed breasts, his hair tickling at her hard nipples. He buried his head in her neck, nipped her there, and sucked, and his hands chafed at her waist, rubbing up and down from hip to rib, up and down.

Arya wiggled her backside, thrust up. Felt him there, at what her stupid septa always called her _woman's place_ , her _secret place_. _It's not secret_ , she thought to herself, _the only secret here is my face_. Gendry bent and ran his tongue across her breast. _And those_.

"So beautiful," Gendry groaned into her ear, and slid inside of her.

 _So this is what it's like_ , she thought as Gendry held himself, stilled there, and she pulled him tighter with her heels behind his back. It was nothing like fighting, stalking, crouching and preparing to kill. Drawn out, yes--it felt like it took years to get here--but here they were. Gendry inside of her, telling her she was beautiful.

"All right?" he asked her, his blue eyes tense with concern in the dim light, one hand fishing hair from the sweat on her forehead.

"Stop stopping," she complained.

He grinned, and dipped to kiss her again. "M'lady."

He slid out, then slid in again. Arya thought it was meant to hurt, but it didn't, not really. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe her _woman's place_ had been borrowed too, and Nan had indeed done this sort of thing before.

No, it didn't hurt at all. Quite the opposite, really, in an almost painful way. Gendry hard inside of her, an odd sort of fullness, and aching, and making her want to cry like the little girl Gendry had always accused her of being.

It was over too soon, but at the same time not fast enough. Gendry shuddering and collapsing on top of her, his big head in her neck. The spill of his seed across Nan's belly.

His voice was hoarse. "Thank you," he said.

"Is it over?" she whispered.

"I think so." He hauled himself onto his elbows and looked down at her so oddly she almost panicked, sure her mask had slipped. But then he kissed her and kissed her harder, and asked when he could next see Nan, because he couldn't want to be inside of her again.


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Actually-factually the last chapter. Thank you for your kudos and comments. I love them more than the Hound loves killing, and in a somewhat less creepy way._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _Here we herald the return of Faceless Arya, teenage assassin, so look away now if you don't fancy her cold-bloodedly murdering dark gray characters out of revenge. Death now, consequences later (probably when she gets to Winterfell). Also warning for poor Gendry and what is undoubtedly some post-sex-with-Melisandre PTSD :/._

**The Second Time**

"Do you want some?" Gendry asked with his mouth full as Arya shucked her mantle. He proffered a bit of meat and boiled crust at Arya with some hesitancy, like he was only just fond enough of her to start sharing food.

"I don't like pie," Arya replied, loosening the laces of her dress.

"Who doesn't like pie?" Gendry said. Then he dropped the bit of crust in his plate as he saw that Arya had foregone her smock and smallclothes beneath her dress.

"I don't," she said. "I'm not hungry."

"Okay," Gendry said. He shoved the plate aside. "I'm not either."

**The Fourth Time**

"Tell me about your family."

Gendry had his arms about her, clutching her close. She was wedged a bit uncomfortably against him, her head nestled firm against his neck, and she was sweating, but she didn't care. She was still humming a little, and a little frustrated, something unreached in her, a kind of pleasure she didn't know existed. But she supposed, thinking now, she must have known it was there somewhere, considering how Tansy and Willow sometimes got on in their room at night. She wanted to visit that place of frustration again, but they'd have to wait at least a little while longer for that.

"What about them?" Arya asked. She arched her neck and kissed his chin through the stupid bush of his beard. She wondered what he would do if she asked him to shave it off. The girls were starting to giggle at the rash forming around her lips.

"Who they are?" Gendry said. "What they do?"

"They're high lords and ladies, of course," Arya said.

"Not you, too," Gendry groaned, pulling her even closer. She stroked a hand along the muscle of his thigh, across the jut of pelvic bone, and felt him shudder against her.

"You sweet on high ladies?" she asked, her heart jittering in her chest.

"What do you think?" he replied.

She hummed and placed his hand firmly on her breast, enjoying the weight of it.

"I have a sister," she said, thinking of Sansa up north, the new Lady of Winterfell, and Jon, the king, at her side. "And a brother," she said. Robb was dead, and Rickon, too, but maybe Bran was still out there, somewhere. She didn't feel compelled to mention it.

"Your parents?" Gendry said.

"Dead," Arya replied.

"Mine too." He drummed his fingers against her breast, watching it shift and stiffen beneath his touch. "The world is full of orphans."

"Because bad men keep killing their parents."

"Did bad men kill yours?"

Arya didn't answer. Gendry squeezed and she squirmed, breathing in so she thrust up firmly against his hand. He grumbled some appreciative sound, and moved his other hand lower, beneath her thigh, nudging his fingers up against the dampness of her cunt.

"You squirm like a weasel," he said.

Arya's heart stuttered harder. She was sure Nan's face was beaming red.

"You fuck many weasels?" she said, cruder now, now that he didn't seem to mind.

He grinned. "Just one."

 _He knows_ , Arya thought as he slid down the narrow bed, thrust her thighs apart and stared at her bloody _woman's place_ like he was learning it new. _He knows who I am, and he doesn't care. He has to know. Gods, I hope he knows_.

"I like this," he said. "I like you."

"I would hope as much, m'lord." She gasped as he slid his thick fingers up between her swollen lips, found something interesting at the crest of them, and ran his thumb across the little swollen nub, grinning as he watched Arya squirm even more.

"Stop it," she said.

"Nan?" he asked, worried, withdrawing his hand.

"I don't want that," she said. "I want you. Come."

He obeyed, sinking between her thighs (on top, always on top), kissed her and pulled on her lip in a new way that made her think that he'd been learning things, too.

He held himself against her, hard again, and propped himself up within kissing distance, looking down.

His look was teasing, an eyebrow raised even as he took his pleasure in pressing himself firm against the crest of her cunt.

"You ever kill a man?" he asked.

Arya's heart beat harder.

"No, m'lord," she said. _What an odd question_ , she wanted to say, but these days, she supposed it wasn't odd at all. "Have you?"

"Only if I had to," Gendry replied, as he once more slid himself in with a groan.

And Arya looped her arms about him and pulled him close, trying not to think how the lies felt like grit between their skins.

**

**The Sixth Time**

The sixth time, he came inside her, then fell over himself apologizing, asking if there was something he could do to make it proper.

"Don't be stupid," Arya had told him, her head feeling light. She'd thought little about it, his seed taking root there, quickening inside her. Had never thought she'd have children. Part of her didn't think she'd mind, carrying 'round Gendry's bastard babe, as long as he kept giving her glances like this, as long as he kept spilling between her legs with a groan that made her worries melt clean away. That part of her was Nan, she thought. Nan, who wouldn't mind one bit, having Gendry's babes, getting big with his child, making a little peasant life here with him while the world carried on bleeding and killing and being killed around them.

 _I'm Arya_ , Arya thought as she returned to the inn when the light was heavy gray with early morning. _Perhaps a little bit Nan. But I will always be Arya._

She woke hours later to the metallic _sshing_ of Tansy sliding off her chain necklace, taking off the rusty key, and clicking open the lock of her little wooden chest at her bedside.

"Someone's been fiddlin' my things," Tansy complained, tossing the key aside and shoving back the collection of glass bottles, cheap jewelry, flimsy tin combs.

"No they haven't," Willow said softly from her own bed, where her sheets were tangled, still stained from last night's guest. "No one has the key but you."

Tansy scowled up at her companion, undoubtedly thinking that it might have been Willow herself, but the only thing Willow would steal would be bread for the orphan-children down the road, and Tansy's collection altogether could barely buy a loaf.

 _Except for the moon tea_ , Arya thought.

"I swear it," Tansy said, knocking a few of her bottles aside. "On my word as a maid."

Both of them broke into laughing, and Tansy clicked her chest back shut. Feet away, Arya gathered herself in her bedclothes, shivering, while the taste of stolen tea swelled bitter across her tongue.

**

**The Twelfth Time**

"Do you like it?"

Arya was bare naked, holding a sword, her feet in swordsman's stance before she even realized.

Gendry was watching her from his bed, grinning.

"It's a skinny little blade," Arya said, fingers suddenly slick. Her mouth was dry, her tongue sticking to her teeth. It was Needle. Well, it _wasn't_ Needle. Needle was well-hidden away, where the other tavern girls would never find it. And Needle, much to her shame, had the smallest spot of rust, the Braavosi Steel Pox, up near the head of the blade. This sword was all shining, bright and new.

"For skinny little girls," Gendry said. He lounged back on the bed, starkers just like she, back on his folded arms, mannish growths of hair thrusting out from under the heavy muscle of arms and shoulders. His cock lounged there, too, between his legs, satisfied with having had her already, just minutes before.

"I would offer to show you how to use it--" Gendry began.

"Could you?" Arya interrupted.

He nodded, amused. "Looks like you already know how."

Arya looked down, at the grasp of her slim fingers wrapping perfectly round the hilt, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Well made," Arya said. "That's where the hand wants to land."

"If you say so," Gendry replied. He stretched out further, flayed-man shape. Half-erect again as she palmed the blade and held it level with her bare breasts. "My hands like other places," he told her, grinning.

He grabbed her carelessly, still the foolish boy, she thought, and she swallowed a laugh as she ripped from him and set not-Needle carefully aside. Then she sat astride him again, a knee either side of his narrow hips, and asked him, "Can I try it like this?" She'd seen Willow and Tansy do it often enough, and well enough, apparently, judging from the noises they made in the next beds. She liked how they took their own pleasure, made up their own minds, and how they were the ones who decided when it was over, and when it would begin.

Gendry didn't look sure. She kissed him. She wanted him to look sure.

"I don't like not being in control," he said.

"Neither do I," she replied.

"I have good reason," he said.

"So do I."

She kissed him again. He liked that well enough. He sat up so they were even, his big head and stupid beard no higher than her own eye-level. She pressed her knees to his waist. Brought his big hands behind her back, onto her backside, and gasped a bit as he pulled her forward, closer, so he sat there between her legs, ready to go again.

"I won't hurt you," she told him, pulling back before she would dip into him again, like he would dip into her.

"I believe you," he said. "Show me what to do."

She did. She tried. She tried too hard, maybe, and blushed and stuttered her stubborn apologies for landing all wrong. Finally, the right rhythm set in, and she blocked Tansy and Willow's keen moaning from her remembering mind until it was only Gendry here, his fingers careful on her ribs, his eyes only on her, only for her, as she moved up and down him, up and down, so every bit of her felt him, every bit alive.

"Stop," Gendry told her once, and she stopped. Held there, feeling like she might cry if she didn't carry on. "Okay," Gendry breathed, with a sorry little grin. "I'm okay." He buried himself in her neck, breathing hard in her ear, and held her tighter as her legs began to burn.

They met again, growing quick, growing frantic. Her groans grew loud enough to wake the boy in the room next door but she no longer cared, because Gendry was saying something in her ear that she didn't understand, and touching something inside her, a little unexplainable place that made her fingers curl into his skin. Made her want to slide into his skin, so she could be no longer Nan, not even Arya, but Gendry, so she could understand what he was whispering into her ear. Something that didn't sound like gasps, or groans, or _Nan_ s. It almost sounded like her name. Her true name. Like he knew her--all of her.

The one hand was there, too, between her legs, at that mystery place he'd stared at before. The other still sliding along her spine. "Oh," Arya said, then louder, " _Oh_." Little Needles slid into her eyes, pricking tears. Her neck arched back, aching like her thighs. Gendry released a nipple from his mouth that she didn't realize he'd been holding, with the gentlest of flicks and a suck. And then he said, "Is it happening?", and then he had his answer, because she had never been so _wet_ , and he had only seconds more to handle before he, too, met his own release with a shudder and a shout and a collapse of all their limbs onto the bed behind him.

Feeling small, she burrowed into him, her legs like jelly from Hot Pie's pies.

"I didn't hurt you," she said, a question as well as a statement of fact. _I told you I wouldn't_.

"You didn't hurt me," he said.

She almost pressed on, to make him admit that she was right, but there was something about his voice that told her he didn't want to say one more thing about it, and for once, she thought it might be best to listen.

**

Another moon and Arya almost forgot what she was meant to be doing there. Who she was, too, beneath the face, and why she kept Needle in its hiding place when all she was was a tavern wench, there to serve bread and pies and ale and fuck Gendry until someone asked her name and she would say without thinking, _Nan_.

"Come to see me tonight?" Gendry whispered in her ear as he sat down for his evening meal, and Tansy and Willow met her with strong _look_ s as she dashed back to the kitchens, a sly smile on her lips.

Those looks faded, though, as did conversation, and something hushed over the inn. Arya thought maybe it was Lannister men, idiots come to meet their doom, let the Brotherhood finish them off as rumor had it that there weren't many Lannisters left standing in Westeros. Or maybe someone else--Thoros, maybe, even though Gendry had said that they'd gone north, off to Winterfell without her.

She erupted from the kitchen with her arms full, and froze.

It was Melisandre.

"Bring me wine," the woman commanded, and Tansy came scurrying, for once saying nothing, while Melisandre stood at the bar like there was not one thing extraordinary about her.

 _Fuck_ , Arya thought. Needle wasn't here, not within easy reaching. And Gendry--Gendry had pushed himself to the furthest table, was easing toward the door. She'd seen that expression in his eyes once, when she straddled him the first time. _How much do you reckon a Faceless Man costs_? he'd asked her only days ago, like he'd known this was coming. _More than you can afford_ , she'd told him, laughing, pretending she didn't know why he would ask.

There was no laughter now. Conversation was lost at the Inn at the Crossroads. The men started to go home, without their dinners, throwing coins at the table and making their ways back to their families. Arya was sent back for more wine, and when she returned, a jolt went through her with the realization that Gendry, too, was gone.

Only Melisandre remained, drinking deeply from a wooden cup, the new flagon of wine close at hand.

 _Poison_ , Arya thought. _I should give her poison. Would she even die?_

She set her mind on gathering plates, watching the witch as close as she could--easy, as she was the only other person there, Tansy and Willow having fled to the back, divvying the night's spoils amongst themselves.

Arya agonized. Ran out of things to do. Soon everyone else had gone, disappeared to their rooms. The kitchen was clean, the oven dying. All she could do was stand at the bar before the red woman, wondering hard what the best way was to make her die.

"It is not the best wine," the red woman said, shoving aside the empty flagon, not in the least bit drunk. She looked tired, Arya thought. _She'll sleep, soon_.

"We're shutting up, m'lady," Arya said, the first words she'd spoken to her all night.

Melisandre looked left, then right, her movements slow, almost sad. "Then I shall go."

Arya dipped a curtsy, and showed the red woman out, locking the door behind her, shutting the shutters, but not before she watched, breath held, to see which way the woman would go.

The kitchen door hung open, and Arya ran on cat-feet to the edge of the Crossroads, where Needle still sat with its rust spot, waiting for her to come back. Waiting for blood.

She was frantic as she returned. Worried that the woman had vanished, disappeared, before Arya could do her duty and take the name she had promised her god.

But she needn't have worried. It was like Melisandre wanted to be seen. Followed. Killed. Like she was taking the world in, walking slowly through the streets, like a ghost keen on haunting, trailing red velvet from street to narrow street.

 _Do you know what you did to him_? Arya thought with such anger she could nearly taste it, coppery in her mouth. Her footfalls were still silent as she moved behind the witch, tracing every slow step. _Do you care?_

 _I could make it look an accident_ , she told herself, though she wasn't quite sure how. _Though no one would believe it. A thief, maybe--could steal that ugly thing at her neck. A raper?_ She scowled, the word, Gendry's expression, strengthening her resolve and quieting any misgivings she had had about killing her.

The Brotherhood liked their fires, and the lights in most the windows had gone out. Only the dots of lamplight remained, creaking overhead, and a blade was stronger than any weakling flame.

Arya was feet behind her in the dirt lane, silent still, when she heard that voice:

"I told you we would meet again, Arya Stark."

Arya froze, Needle held tight in her hand. She didn't remember when she'd slid aside Nan's face, but she was just Arya now, plain Arya, her own skin feeling numb from disuse.

How the woman knew she was there, however, was a mystery. Ugly magic. The red woman's back was to her, the only thing in Arya's line of sight the endless velvet red.

The woman turned, her hands folded before her, sleeves trailing, graceful, to the ground. She was beautiful, Arya thought, and hideous, all at once. _Like me_ , Arya thought. _She wears another's skin_.

Arya approached, Needle held high in killing stance, water-dancer feet light, floating.

"You need not give me a reason to die," the woman said, as Arya stepped within striking distance, her teeth clenched as tight as the rest of her. The red woman's deep voice, her strange accent, was doing hateful things to her insides. "You could not kill me if I did not will it," the woman said. She extended her hands, white fingers lifting up, all arrogance leaching from her face. "I have come ready to meet my Lord."

"Didn't you know?" Arya's own voice surprised her. It was loud, and clear-cut as glass. Needle thrust forward, its point sliding against the red woman's belly, a lover's kiss beneath her ribs "There is only one god," she said, feeling her face pull into the assassin's smile, "and his name is Death."

She stepped close with a silent sigh, wanting to feel the slice upwards, the give of flesh and skin and life. There would be blood, floods of it, rivers and lakes. It would go everywhere, for the rain and the crows and the pigs. They wouldn't get everything, though. For months, people would walk by this spot and stare at the rust of the ground, and think, _There's where the witch died. Bleeding out red, just like everyone else._

But there was no blood, none of it spilling, hot and slippery, across her hands. There was only a gasp, an intake of breath and a _woosh_ like a fire going up a chimney, ready to set a whole roof alight.

The red woman didn't crumple in cloth and skin and blood.

No. She crumbled, like wood charred by fire, exploding to hot ash.

Arya stumbled back, coughed, choking in a cloud of dust. Coughed until her lungs burned, her eyes stinging, struggling to see.

Struggling to see what she almost didn't believe:

The woman was gone. A plume of black, like smoke from a village burning. Raining down with whitened ash.

There was only one red she left behind: the deep-blood crimson of cloak and dress, and the necklace that lay dark and dim in its pile on the ground, spent.

"Arya?"

Arya looked up, ash in her ears, her eyes, her mouth.

Gendry was there, on the other side. Swimming in her vision. Feet away, orange in lamplight. Not-Needle in his hand. Something like understanding on his face, like he wasn't near as stupid as she always thought he was.

"I knew it was you," he breathed, and Needle and Not-Needle both dropped to the ground. "I knew it."

Her breathing was ragged. Her mind aflame. Her heart would never slow down. She felt the hot dust on her skin, her own skin, wondered if it would leave scars there, little killer's marks to match the lover's marks she hoped she still wore, even with Nan's face gone.

"I'm going to Winterfell," she told him. Her words were hoarse, smoke-tinged, numb in her throat. "Come home with me."

"Home?" he said. He took a step forward, so only the red woman's cloak separated them, a velvet pool of blood.

"Arya..." He breathed in deeply, ash in his lungs, wetness in his eyes as he looked at her, saw her. Drew her in, the cloak trampled beneath them, under their feet. Their arms bare, her face in his neck, so all she could feel was skin, and all she could hear was his voice in her ear, whispering her name, over and over and over.


End file.
